- A ballot proposal submitted in Lansing aims to establish a Citizens’ Advisory Healthcare Action Committee to address rising healthcare costs and barriers to care in mid-Michigan and beyond.
- The proposal would direct the committee to prepare a biennial Healthcare Action Plan, make recommendations to the City, and provide a public process for community input and needs assessment.
- Community Action Michigan, the group behind the proposal, has criticized U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett and U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga for their voting records on healthcare affordability, but the group’s funding sources remain undisclosed, raising concerns about transparency.
A ballot proposal submitted to the Lansing City Clerk’s office would establish a Citizens’ Advisory Healthcare Action Committee in an attempt to combat rising healthcare costs and barriers to care in mid-Michigan and beyond.
A press release from Community Action Michigan, a political committee created in April, said that Lansing voters submitted 7,385 signatures to the Lansing City Clerk last week, above the required minimum of 4,433 signatures to get a proposal on the ballot
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The proposal would direct the committee to “prepare a biennial Healthcare Action Plan and make recommendations to the City, and to provide a public process through which the public will be heard and needs assessed,” including through community forums and analysis of local data and policies, according to ballot language published on the group’s website.
The group held a press conference Tuesday to discuss the proposal and announce that signatures had already been turned into Lansing city officials.
“People who have no health coverage often don’t see a physician until a medical condition becomes a medical crisis,” said Dr. Todd R. Otten, MD, a Lansing family physician. “The emergency department is intended to be a safety net, not the place where a patient first sees a physician. Unfortunately, when this occurs, the care they receive is extraordinarily complex, extremely expensive and sometimes too late.”
Lansing is one of six cities where such a petition is being proposed for November’s ballot. Community Action Michigan has also published similar ballot language in East Lansing, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Benton Harbor and Portage. Local news outlets have reported that signatures have been turned in to local clerks in East Lansing, Kalamazoo and Portage.
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“While I have healthcare coverage, my out-of-pocket costs, copays, deductibles and other additional expenses devastated my family financially,” said Dana Watson, a cancer survivor living in East Lansing. “I am not alone and thousands of Michigan families can share similar stories of having to fight insurance companies, Big Pharma and bureaucratic red tape even as they fight to stay alive. I have come to know many Michiganders who work in healthcare and serve as caregivers who cannot afford healthcare themselves.”
Speakers at the press conference, as well as the website for the proposal, explicitly criticized the voting record of U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte), who represents both Lansing and East Lansing in Washington, on healthcare affordability and said that Congress had failed to keep healthcare accessible to Michiganders. U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, whose district includes the other four cities with ballot proposals, is also specifically named and targeted by the group’s messaging
“When politicians like Congressman Tom Barrett voted to cut $1.1 trillion from Medicaid in order to give tax breaks to billionaires, he took healthcare away from many of our neighbors and he’s making the people of Lansing shoulder the burden,” said Oscar Castañeda, a Lansing resident as well as the regional organizing coordinator for MI Poder and a board member of the Ingham County Health Plan. “Our neighborhoods pay the price when sick people don’t get the care they need and deserve for a treatable, manageable condition. Taking healthcare away from people is not a plan; it is an act of sabotage against hardworking families.”
But the group itself is opaque, having registered in Michigan’s Department of State campaign finance database in late April as both a nonprofit and a political action committee, which Bridge Michigan reported were “hallmarks of so-called ‘dark money’ efforts.” It also made that filing two days after the April campaign finance filing deadline. The next deadline is not until July 25, meaning that there is no information currently published about who is funding the group’s mission
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“Community Action Michigan is a nonprofit made up of Michiganders who want real change and are demanding lower healthcare costs,” Alana Ivey, a spokesperson for the organization wrote in response to a question asking for further information about the group’s backers as well as concerns of dark money in these initiatives. “We are in the process of fundraising for this important effort and will make all required disclosures and file all reports as required by law.”
The only publicly identified individuals associated with the group are Barbara Hammon, who is identified in Tuesday’s press release as the board president of Community Action Michigan and a trustee of Kalamazoo County’s Texas Charter Township, and Heather Ricketts, who is listed as the group’s treasurer in the Department of State database. Ricketts is a political consultant who, according to her LinkedIn profile, currently serves as the compliance and operations director for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Fight Like Hell PAC. The committee is also registered to the same address as is listed for Grow Kalamazoo, a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization promoting a childcare millage in Kalamazoo.
